March 2021

Choreographer, performer, educator, essayist Kimberly Bartosik creates viscerally provocative, ferociously intimate choreographic projects that are built upon the development of a virtuosic movement language, rigorous conceptual explorations, and the creation of highly theatricalized environments. Her work dramatically illuminates the ephemeral nature of performance while critically, tenderly, and violently etching away at deeply distressing threads of our society. 

Bartosik is a 2020 Bessie Honoree for Outstanding Performance & Outstanding Performer (Burr Johnson) for her recent work, through the mirror of their eyes. She is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography and a 2020 Virginia B. Toulmin Women Leaders in Dance Fellow at Center for Ballet and the Arts (CBA) at NYU.  Bartosik’s work has been commissioned and presented by BAM Next Wave Festival (2018), New York Live Arts, LUMBERYARD, American Realness, FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival, Abrons Art Center, Gibney, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, La Mama, and BEAT Festival.  She has toured to Supersense: Festival of the Ecstatic (Melbourne, Australia), Bratislava in Movement (2021), Wexner Arts Center, Dance Place, American Dance Festival, The Yard, MASS MoCA/Jacob’s Pillow, FlynnSpace, Bates Dance Festival,  Columbia College, Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté à Belfort, Festival Rencontres Chorégraphique Internationales de Seine-Saint Denis, Artdanthe Festival, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (2021), Church, Mount Tremper Arts, and others. 

Bartosik’s 2020 digital quarantine project, The Game, was commissioned by the Onassis Foundation and presented as part of Fusebox Festival. She is currently collaborating with Visual Artist Matthew Ritchie on You will see more stars, a multi-iteration work merging Augmented Reality into the live performance arena. In 2021-22 she will create a new work in partnership with Torn Space Theater with teens of refugee immigrants. She will create The Encounter, her CBA work for 12-15 year old pre-professional dancers, in spring 2021. Her articles Give Artists a Home! and It’s Time to Reimagine Dance Funding, were featured in Dance Magazine (Dec 2020, Feb 2021).  

Bartosik was a 2017-20 New York Live Arts Live Feed Residency Artist; a 2019-20 Harkness Dance Center Artist-in-Residence @ the 92nd St Y; and a 2019 Exploring the Metropolis (EtM) recipient with Composer Sivan Jacobovitz. In 2017 she received a National Dance Project (NDP) Production & Touring Grant and Community Engagement Fund awards, supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts. A 2010 and 2017 MAP Fund grantee, Bartosik and has also received support from the Jerome Foundation; FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance), a program of the New England Foundation for the Arts in partnership with The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French American Cultural Exchange; Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, USArtists International;  Creative Arts Initiative (CAI); New York Foundation for the Arts, Building Up Infrastructure Levels for Dance (BUILD); American Dance Abroad; New Music USA, Live Music for Dance; and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists and Emergency Grants. 

Bartosik has been in creative residence at New York Live Arts, Live Feed and Studio Series; Marble House Project; National Choreographic Center at Akron/NCCAkron; Centre Chorégraphique National-Ballet de Lorraine; LUMBERYARD Center for Film & Performing Arts; Gibney Dance Center’s DiP Residency; Centre Chorégraphique National de Franche-Comté à Belfort; Governor’s Island through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space Program; Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University; Joyce Soho Artist Residency Program; University of Buffalo, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center; Jacob’s Pillow; Kaatsbaan International Dance Center; Mount Tremper Arts; White Oak Plantation; and Movement Research. Bartosik was a 2017 Bogliasco Foundation Fellow and a 2019 and 2015 Merce Cunningham Fellow. She was a recipient of an ART, a Capacity-Building grant through Pentacle. In 2018, Bartosik made her curatorial debut as part of DoublePlus at Gibney.

A member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for 9 years, Bartosik received a Bessie Award for Exceptional Artistry in his work. She received her BFA in Dance from North Carolina School of the Arts, and MA in 20th Century Art and Art Criticism from The Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Research of the New School University. Bartosik has been a guest artist/faculty at Hollins University, Princeton University, The Juilliard School, Rutgers University, Bates College, The Playground, University of North Carolina School for the Arts, Arizona State University’s Hergberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Colorado College, and University of Buffalo. She currently teaches at SUNY/Purchase Conservatory of Dance and the Merce Cunningham Trust.

Deborah Damast (BFA Dance, SUNY Purchase, MA Dance Education, NYU, DEL Certificate) is Associate Professor and Program Director of Dance Education at NYU Steinhardt where in addition to teaching, she is Artistic Director of concerts, Kaleidoscope Dancers, and the Uganda study abroad program. Deborah is the Past-President of the New York State Dance Education Association, has served on the boards of NYSDEA, NDEO, Dance Education in Practice Journal, and Peridance Contemporary Dance Company and is a member of the NDEO Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access IDEA committee. She is on faculty at LREI/Little Red Schoolhouse, Dance Education Laboratory, and The Yard and has directed programs at Peridance, Steffi Nossen, Harvey School Cavalier Camp, The Yard Kids Do Dance, and OBT Exposed. Deborah facilitates Professional Learning for teachers through the NYC Department of Education, 92Y DEL, and PKFCC Pre-K for all and has contributed to the NYC Blueprint for the Arts and the DEL Early Childhood model.  She has presented at numerous conferences and festivals in the U.S. including a Keynote speech at UDEO, NDEO, NYSDEA, ACDFA, CUNY, and Kymabogo in Uganda. Her choreography has been shown at over 40 venues in NYC including Ailey Citigroup, Peridance, World Financial Center, Riverside Church, Judson Church, Symphony Space, Cooper Union, 92Y, 14^th St. Y, Skirball Theatre, and internationally in Japan, Uganda, Korea, Italy, and Canada. Deborah has taught for the Education Departments of Oregon Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, guest choreographed/taught for West Virginia University, Marymount Manhattan College, and Brigham Young University, and has written curriculum for Peridance, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, DEL, NYCB, and the NYC DOE. Deborah has collaborated with Emily Bear on music videos and co-created and starred in Move N Groove Kids creative movement video series. Deborah is a recipient of the 2009 NYU GSU Star Faculty Award, the 2010 NDEO Outstanding Dance Educator Award: Higher Education, the 2017 Steinhardt Teaching Excellent Award, the  2020 Dance Teacher Magazine Award for Higher Education and 2021 NDEO Executive Director Award. She participated in Motion Capture studies at NYU, collaborated with Music and Music Technology, and at NYU was a co-recipient of grants for Dance Literacy and Data Literacy, Professional Development, and the 2020 Diversity Innovation grant.